Faye stopped running and stood still in the labyrinth, gathering her thoughts and making herself steady her breathing. There was no point panicking.
She plunged both hands into her pockets while she thought and, as she did so, her fingers closed around the crystal in her pocket. She brought it out and held it up to her face; it still held a tiny amount of luminescence from the crystal castle where she had taken a little from one of the walls; she had kept it with her constantly since bringing it back with her.
Faye held the crystal up, but it made little difference to the dark. Yet she felt that it had more power, that she could use it to help her, if only she knew how. She racked her brain, trying to remember the crystalline singing that seemed to have come from the walls of the seven-pointed faerie castle in the centre of the faerie realm. It was the centre of all the magic of faerie.
She could remember the words, though she didn’t know what they meant. She began to sing the words softly, and then louder as she gained confidence. She tried to replicate how it had sounded, standing in the centre of the multi-layered harmonies that had wanted to weave her into the sacred space.
Tar a thighearna… Tar a thi… She sang the harmony. And, as she did so, the crystal began to glow, lighting up the dark labyrinth. The pinkish light filled the pathway, shining into the overgrown high corners and the mud underfoot.
Faye looked around her; now, at least, she could see where she was, though she still had no idea where to go. It wasn’t going to be an easy route through this time.
As she took some tentative steps forward, she heard a voice in the distance.
She listened hard; it was very, very distant, but Faye concentrated as hard as she could.
The voice grew a little louder; still, it was only the volume of a whisper, and it seemed to be passed leaf to leaf in the dark, a shushing noise that carried a word.
Faye, Faye, the leaves whispered, circling her like a net. Faye.
It was Moddie’s voice. Faye turned around, trying to find the source of the whisper. She was sure it was her mother’s voice. Faye. Follow my voice.
Holding the crystal in front of her for light, she followed twist after turn, sometimes feeling as though she was walking uphill, sometimes down. But try as she might, Faye couldn’t get any closer to Moddie’s faint call and, all the time, she kicked away reaching branches and trailing weeds that seemed bent on tripping her up and holding her back.
At the centre of a hedged-in square she found a large silver bowl of pink roses standing on a golden cube, which reminded her of the carpet of rose petals that had surrounded the crystal castle. As she stopped to smell them, she looked down and saw the letter M scratched in the dirt by her feet.
Moddie had been here; she was close by. Somehow, she was helping Faye through the maze. Faye still missed Moddie terribly; just the sight of someone with the same colour and length of hair or the same way of laughing or holding their head made her look twice, still desperate to see that familiar face one more time.
Faye took three of the roses and picked the petals off, scattering them behind her like the breadcrumbs in Hansel and Gretel; she would need to find her way back through the labyrinth, after all.
She followed another twist and another turn and, at the far end of the next pathway, Moddie stood waiting for her, wearing a gown made entirely of rose petals. She held out her hand to her daughter.
‘Come on, darling. We don’t have much time,’ she said, and Faye ran to her, with tears burning her eyes.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Faye ran through the labyrinth, holding her mother’s hand.
‘To the castle! We… must… get within the castle gates. We’ll be safe there,’ Moddie called over her shoulder, and Faye saw that there were tears in her mother’s eyes too.
‘I missed you,’ Faye replied as they ran, dodging branches and stones along the way.
‘The paths are closing!’ Moddie shouted, and pulled Faye along faster. ‘I missed you too, my darling.’ She stopped briefly and hugged her daughter. ‘There’s so much I want to tell you, but there’s no time. For now, we have to get out of here.’
Faye held the crystal up higher and saw that Moddie was right; the sides of the pathway were drawing together. Some way in front of them she could see the moonlight glinting on the castle. It didn’t look that far, but to get just a little further might mean running miles from one side to the other in the labyrinth.
‘I don’t think we’re going to make it in time!’ Faye shouted in reply as the tendrils grasped for her more and more aggressively; she tore them away, but they caught her again and again, twisting up her legs and wrapping themselves around her wrists.
Moddie was the same, but different. She had not aged, because there was no ageing in spirit, and in fact she looked younger than she was when she died. And there were other differences, too. Moddie’s hand in hers was light and insubstantial and, as they ran, it seemed that Moddie’s feet didn’t touch the ground.
‘We’ll make it,’ Moddie said. Faye remembered that determined tone. When Moddie wanted something, she usually got it. ‘Remember you’re half-fae. Feel the faerie power as much as you can. You can use it here. Let it fill you.’
Faye focused on the swirling cerise energy of faerie; she called it in, surrendered to it, with as much of herself as she could whilst running. She felt the black stars swell and burst inside her chest; felt the power of faerie engulf her, thrill her body, sharpen her senses.
‘That’s right! More! Moddie shouted. Faye took in a deeper breath and felt the power unfurl from inside her at the same time it surrounded her; it grew thicker and flowed faster, faster, until she started to lose feeling in her hands and feet. ‘I’ve got you!’ Moddie yelled as Faye’s feet hovered off the ground like hers did.
The faerie power lit up the labyrinth; the deep pink flashed on the dark hedges and holes opened up and closed again at random in the tall hedged sides of the labyrinth.
Moddie pulled her towards one, but it was too small for them to fit through.
‘Can you make it bigger?’ Moddie breathed, glancing around them as the labyrinth continued to tighten. ‘When you focus on your fae magic you can disrupt the illusion of the labyrinth. Can you control it better?’
Faye tried, but it she didn’t know how.
‘Sorry.’ She felt a failure and the memory of standing on stage as a child and forgetting her lines returned to haunt her for a moment. But Moddie shook her head impatiently.
‘No time for sorry,’ she said. ‘You’ll learn to use it here in time. But for now, we need something else. I can’t get us through this on my own. He’s too strong for me.’
‘Finn?’ A part of Faye somehow still hoped that it wasn’t her lover doing this; that there was another presence scheming against her.
‘Faerie kings are jealous, Faye,’ Moddie chided. ‘But it’s my fault. I could have taught you about your true self, about your father, about faerie, but I wanted to protect you.’ Moddie enveloped Faye in a hug and Faye felt the comfort of her mother’s body envelop her. She gulped away tears; she had missed Moddie so much that it hurt to see her again now. It was an ache she had become accustomed to forgetting; seeing Moddie made her remember the pain of loss.
‘It’s okay. I’ve been learning faerie magic with the faerie queen, Glitonea. So that I can come and go freely in Murias without being so… bound to Finn. I can protect myself,’ Faye said shyly.
‘Faerie magic? With Glitonea? How?’
‘The same as you. I made a bargain. On account of being Lyr’s daughter.’
Moddie caught her shoulders.
‘What? No, Faye. You can’t… making a bargain with the fae is dangerous. You shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Well, I have, so it’s too late now,’ Faye snapped.
‘What was the bargain?’ Moddie asked, but the labyrinth seemed to have sensed their halt and wrapped vines around their legs. Faye kicked them off, and pulled her mother along the
walkway.
‘Come on. We have to keep moving. There’s no time to talk about it now. I offered myself as a weapon of some kind against him, in this war they’re having. Glitonea says Lyr is fond of his children. Maybe at some point they think they can… I don’t know… send me to talk to him?’
They turned a corner into a walkway that they both had to turn sideways to get into at all. Faye felt a wave of oppression wash over her and she tried to take a deep, calming breath, but the denseness of the hedges reaching in choked her.
‘No, Faye! That’s not what they mean. You must not…’ But Moddie didn’t finish her sentence. Something in the hedge reached out, as if it had arms this time, and dragged Moddie back into it. She screamed and tore at the vegetation, but in seconds it had covered her body. Faye rushed to her mother and started pulling the leaves away, but it was too fast and replaced whatever she pulled off with twice as much.
‘Mum!’ she cried out, but the leaves and vines were too fast.
‘Faye. You don’t understand, about your father. I—’
‘He tried to kill you. I don’t care what happens to him!’ Faye cried.
Grief filled Moddie’s features.
‘No, Faye. That’s not true… I—’ Moddie choked and spat out the leaves snaking into her mouth.
‘You said it. I was eight, I came down that time, you were drinking with that woman from the coven. You said he almost killed you.’
Moddie shook her head, confused.
‘No. Faye… he didn’t. That’s not what I meant.’ She coughed again. ‘There’s no time to explain, but you’re wrong. Glitonea… did you visit the crystal castle?’
‘Yes.’ Faye felt branches pull at her clothes; vines wrapped around her leg. She felt them circle her left wrist; she pulled away, but they were too strong. Desperately, she stripped vegetation away from Moddie with her right hand. If Moddie didn’t mean that her father, Lyr, had tried to kill her, what did she mean? It was so long ago, and Faye had been just a child. What had Moddie’s exact words been? Whatever this meant, she couldn’t think about it now.
‘Did you bring back any of the rose petals? From Morgana’s castle?’ Moddie retched as the hedge reached the back of her throat. Faye nodded, horrified. ‘Cast one on the ground. Hurry!’ Moddie coughed as the vine disappeared into her mouth.
A leaf brushed Faye’s own mouth; she suppressed a scream and reached into her pocket with her right hand, drawing out the black kelpie’s scale which she had folded in half like a purse. Its tough, leathery hide had kept the three petals safe underwater, when she had ridden the kelpie and ever since.
The plants had both of her legs now and would twist into her mouth the next time she opened it; she knew. They would reach down inside her gullet, like they had with Moddie, spreading new roots inside her lungs and stomach, assimilating her into the labyrinth. She had a sudden vision of herself with leaves and stems sprouting from the corner of her eyes, pulling her eyelids open in an expression of permanent horror as they wove her flesh back into the verdant green.
Faye took out one of the rose petals and threw it into the ground between them. At the same time, Moddie shouted Tar a thighearna… Tar a thi!
A scream cut through the air. Faye’s last vision, bathed in the light of the glowing crystal, was her mother’s face, contorted with pain.
Chapter Thirty-Six
When Faye opened her eyes she was standing behind a pillar in the great hall and the faerie ball was in full swing. She was alone.
She slumped behind the stone and wept, her tears sudden and bitter. To have her mother back so suddenly, after all that time, and have her taken away again so cruelly was shocking; it was nightmarish, a stab into a heart that had managed to order its grief, to manage it so that it no longer consumed her. She sobbed like a child, hugging her knees, wanting Moddie back. She whispered her mother’s name between her tears, hoping to summon her, but the cacophony of dancers continued behind her, and Moddie did not come.
Faye peered out from behind the pillar at the whirling dancers. Around and around they went, faster and faster, while the faerie pipers and fiddlers played their jig. Faye was reminded of the fairy tale of the red shoes; of the mysterious gypsy dancer who would give her shoes to innocent girls but, once the shoes were on, they could never be taken off and would dance the wearer to death. This dance was underpinned with a similar strange kind of desperation. Faye saw more clearly now that many of the dancers were human, but emaciated, being pulled around unconscious like dolls, danced to the point of exhaustion.
She hadn’t noticed before, when she was in the dance. Because she had been with Finn, and Finn’s glamour covered over the things he didn’t want her to see. She closed her eyes as a vision of Moddie’s face covered in vines struck her like a sword. Was Moddie alive? Was she stuck there in the labyrinth for ever, as part of Finn’s punishment for helping her daughter? She was in spirit already, and yet the hedge had held her fast. But nothing was as it seemed in Murias; it was a place of illusion, woven with terror and desire in equal measure.
A knot of dancers reeled dangerously close to the pillar; the faeries among them screeched with the wild joy of the dance. Faye closed her eyes and held her breath. If she was seen, she knew she would either be cast out of Murias, or punished in another way. Moddie had helped her get this far against Finn’s wishes. But she owed it to her mother to save Rav.
The dance was slowing. Faye watched Finn Beatha enter the ballroom with Rav at his side. Rav’s hands were bound with a golden rope; he stumbled as he walked, and Finn shoved him forward.
The faerie dance slowed to stare at its newest participant.
Faye watched Rav stumble. She wanted to go to him, to wrap him up in her arms, but she knew she couldn’t.
Finn strode into the centre of the dance, pulling Rav behind him. The music stopped suddenly; the dancers halted. There was an expectant hush. Now that the dancers had stopped moving, some bodies fell to the floor; no-one made any move to pick them up.
‘Be blessed, faeries of the dance, for you have a new dancer!’ he cried, and the crowd cheered, though Faye could hear forced jollity in the throng. ‘This foolish human sought to take my property from me. Perhaps you will all deign to teach him some manners!’ he cried. There was a loud cry of approval from the crowd, but it rang hollow to Faye’s ears.
Watching the dance from the edges, and no longer under Finn’s enchantment, the great hall was darker and more shadowed than Faye remembered. The gold and silver lamps that had glowed so merrily were dirty, the glass smokily opaque; now they cast only a dim, dull orange light. The hammered gold bowls of candlelit water were dark; no light reflected off their surfaces. The walls of the castle were more soot-blackened than Faye remembered; the lush, velvety tapestry hangings that she remembered from the rest of the castle were here too, but on the one nearest her, she made out pornographic scenes embroidered into the muted blues and dull orange hues. She looked away, shocked at the explicit imagery and the tortured faces of the humans and faeries.
Finn pushed Rav into the centre of the dance and motioned to the band to start playing.
‘Dance, dance!’ he cried out as the crowd started its mad whirling once again. ‘For you will never stop; the faerie reel is the power of the Kingdom of Murias! Were it to stop, our lights would go out. Our power would dim. So, dance! Faeries and mortals, dance and be merry. For the love of your king!’ Finn clapped and danced through the crowd. Faye’s heart beat fast in her panic. She had to get away, and take Rav with her. But how?
The music grew louder. Faye put her hand in her pocket distractedly, feeling the leathery kelpie’s scale. She watched as Finn made his way through the crowd, kissing faeries, picking them up, spinning them around and putting the down again with a smile. Jealousy twisted in her belly, especially when he held the young pretty fae around their tiny waists and whispered in their ears. Faye watched as they blushed and giggled at whatever he said, and how they watched him as he danced
away from them, to the edge of the circle. She watched Finn, in the dark hall, full of the depravity his enchantments had masked. His power still drew her to him; like the girl in the red shoes, she wanted to dance. The music was a siren call; she wanted to stop up her ears like the sailors had done in the old myth, to ignore the sirens’ seductive song. But she had the start of an idea, and she gripped the kelpie’s scale tight in her pocket.
Faye waited for a swell of dancers at the edge of the circle to reach where she was hiding, and she stepped into the dance just as Finn stepped out of it and watched as it spun around.
The pace had quickened already; the pipers were playing at full speed, and Faye felt out of breath almost immediately.
The shapes and beings passing her were so fast at times that they were only a blur, but sometimes the crowd slowed, seeming to take a temporary breath before it swung around in its endless dance. In those moments skeletal faces leered at her and strange faeries with cavernous bodies and upside-down heads and feet that were laced with bulbous veins, or, worse, covered in blood, pressed against her. She couldn’t see Rav.
She felt as though she was dancing on glass; that if she had the red shoes from the fairy tale on her feet, now they were aflame.
The dance swung her around and around, closer to where Finn stood, surveying the dancers with a critical eye. Faye craned her neck to catch sight of Rav; she could see flashes of his black hair through the faeries at the centre of the circle who spun like dervishes, and she could hear his voice calling out for help. Just stay there, she willed him. Don’t do anything. I’m coming to get you.
But she was being pushed closer and closer to Finn and Faye couldn’t fight against the tide.
Don’t look this way, she silently begged. A few more moments and Finn would see her; he’d know that she had broken through the labyrinth, despite his best efforts to keep Faye out.
Carefully, shielding the kelpie’s scale with her body from the dancers, she reached into it and took out one of the rose petals from the faerie castle. She replaced the kelpie’s scale in her pocket. A group of spiralling dancers caught her and pulled her into the centre of the circle.
Daughter of Light and Shadows Page 23
